Upward and downward counterfactuals: Liberalism vs. Neo-liberalism and libertarianism

by: Paul Rosenberg

Fri Dec 24, 2010 at 15:00

Upward counterfactuals look at "how much better it would have been if..."-these reduce satisfaction with reality but help individuals prepare for better performance in the future. The "sanctimonious purists" with whom the President parts company are engaging in upward counterfactuals-and rightly so.

Downward counterfactuals look at "how much worse it would have been if..."-and engender a sense of complacency and satisfaction; to me, they can be rationalizations for "settling" or, worse, defeatist.

The entire line from the Obama administration and its most ardent supporters has been, among other things, one long exercise in downward counterfactualism-"it would have been even worse if we had not gotten x,"

This diary is basically an expansion on a brief response I made to another atute comment by Jeff in the discussion thread of that diary.  We've actually covered this territory before, but not from this precise angle. In February of this year, I wrote a diary, "Conservative manifestos are provably false", which contained a brief passage on the emergence of the British "New Liberals" in the 1870s, which Daniel then quoted, and used as a launching pad for his diary "One liberalism through the ages".  In it, he argued that "'classic' liberals are just liberals operating in a different socio-political environment"--one that no longer actually exists.

And he turns to Boston College political scientist Alan Wolfe for a definition of liberalism that works to cover both:

Wolfe provides a really good one: "As many people as possible should have as much say as is feasible over the direction their lives will take."

In a radio interview Wolfe once gave, he highlighted the concept of autonomy as vital to liberalism. It is distinct (ironically considering the etymology of the word) from "liberty" (or "freedom"). I have never liked the word liberty. Perhaps it is because those who extol it most often seem to be referring to the liberty of a predator to consume prey. What of the liberty of the prey not to be eaten? Liberty and freedom are negative concepts. They imply merely the absence of formal restraint (usually by the state). However autonomy is a richer and more complete concept. It is akin to the distinction Martin Luther King Jr. once drew between peace that was merely the absence of violence, and peace which contained the presence of justice. Thus it is not merely enough to remove the chains that bind humanity, if they are left destitute in the street to wander aimlessly and hungry. Autonomy requires the capacity to pursue goals. It is still individualistic, but allows for the real support all of us need from without to make any of those goals a reality.

Now, I disagree slightly with Daniel here, since, as I noted in another diary today, Brad DeLong points out that even classical liberal heroes like Bastiat didn't actually believe in "classical liberal" absolutes as they were later articulated by people who I don't think ought to be included as liberals, precisely because they don't really want to protect the autonomy of the prey.  Either way, though, I think there are two clearly visible distinctions here, both of which can be seen as reflecting an underlyhing cleavage between upward-looking and downward-looking counterfactual thinking: the autonomy vs. liberty/freedom cleavage and the historical cleavage between liberalism expressed in the early-mid 19th century vs. how it came to be expressed later.